Chương 7: Gods and Devils

June never really understood religion; he understood the values and premise of some religions, but he never understood why people prayed and begged to a savior they never met and had enough faith to believe all will turn well. He was starting to understand; he always felt like his prayers went unanswered. Sometimes it felt like his prayers just told the universe what his vulnerability was and how to exploit it.

So June never fully immersed himself in a religion; his family, on the other hand, ranged from hypocrite to zealous when it came to religion. The creature kept on throwing its spear toward June, but nothing more than grazes and gashes would appear on his body; he couldn't tell if the beast was pitying him or playing with him. People in his life always told him that God gives people trials, things to overcome and better themselves, but June wondered why God hated him; his life was a never-ending trial, if anything.

Problems sprung in his life like an introduced mint plant; sometimes new problems would pile on, new stresses, new assignments, new tasks. He always told himself he was overreacting, that other people dealt with the same problems as him, that he was weak. But he always found himself overworking himself; there have been occasions where he had worked until hallucinations appeared, voices would tell him to give up, and blood would start drooling from his mouth in concerning quantities.

Was this what God wanted for him? An early grave? The spear flew past him again, this time taking a finger off his hand, his dominant one. Was his trial just a stress test? Was he born to die an early death? To find the limits of a person? Who was June to speak? There was probably someone else in a worse situation than him; he was just overthinking and overreacting. The creature caught up; June didn't make it that far before it caught up to him. It didn't skewer him; it didn't try to throw a spear at him either.

He saw the entrance of the building and felt the breeze of the cold air; the wall of snow built up taller than he was. A small hand, small for the creature's proportions, slapped June in the ribs; he couldn't believe that he would die to a backhand, especially in this scenario. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Should he have fought back? He would have preferred to have died fighting. Why didn't he throw a punch at the creature?

It was useless to even try; it was useless to resist. It was faster, stronger, and more resilient. What could he have done?

The hand hit him, the world felt so slow, he felt his ribs stressing from just the air, and he felt the release of his skin, then flesh, then his bone as the hand reached his side, then in the instant, he was in the air, his breath felt stifled, maybe it was the cold air, maybe he was winded from running, maybe it was the torn hole in his side and the shattered bones piercing what's left in his body. He flew horizontally towards the entrance. He flew a good distance; the structure was massive.

The elevator was a good few football fields away from the entrance, hundreds of meters. June's non-dominant hand was getting a lot of abuse today; he flew out the door, but his arm hit the jagged rip above the breach in the entrance. His bones felt like they exploded; they might have. A violent wrenching squelch was heard as his arm was mangled. It was still attached to his body, so it was a luxury, a privilege even.

The rest of his body made it out the breach; if the mystery creature hadn't clawed the doorway out, his spine would have made contact with the doorframe, and his body would have been torn in half from the sheer force, but what did it matter? He was going to die today. He flew and almost gracefully disappeared into the wall of snow; it would have just been a man-sized hole in the wall, if not for the blood splattered around the hole. June thought, maybe even in his final thoughts, that he would like to ask God why.

What did he do to deserve this all? He had no worth, but he still wanted to live. Was it the Devil? Who could I ask? God or Devil? Did they even care? Were they both in on it? Were they both even related to the anguish his life had been? This spotty moment of pain, his mutilated body, soon to be a corpse, had a couple final thoughts.

'It could be worse.' The chilling embrace of the snow was soothing his burning wounds; the mystical snow was chillingly nice; it reminded him of the nicer times.... Nothing came to mind. His nicer times were just minutes without trouble, but trouble always seems to find him. He was a blight on the world and to the people around him. To the snow around him. The world seemed to be burning. The white world of snow, he could not tell if it was his body heat or if his spirit was burning and taking away his cold embrace.

Everything was taken from him; his mind, body, and soul were aflame. Why? He felt a rare emotion for himself, anger, rage, he felt his spirit burning. His burning spirit of spite. The spear flew into the snow again; it would have taken a piece of his ear off if his ear wasn't taken already. The fleshy tube connected to the spear and the monster was close to his face; it was slimy and pungent. But June didn't care. He bit down onto it.